Robinson Technologies
Text is copyright © 2014 Wikipedia. Robinson Technologies is a company founded and run by Seth Robinson in 1989, when he created the BBS door game, Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD). He currently operates the company with the help of his wife, Akiko Robinson, in Hiroshima, Japan. Seth's full name is Seth Able Robinson and the character Seth Able the bard from LORD was named after himself. Also, the final boss in Dink Smallwood was also named Seth. Growtopia was made in 2013 by Seth and Hamumu. Company history Legend of the Red Dragon In 1989, Seth Robinson had created a game for his Amiga-based BBS that he called Legend of the Red Dragon, or simply LORD for short. The game was not immediately popular, but it took off after he ported it to the PC. Originally only featuring text-based menus and fighting, the game allowed for early multiplayer RPG play before the advent of MMORPGs. It allowed for multiple players (if the BBS had enough phone lines) to play at once. Later, the game would feature a form of graphical menus using RIPTerm. IGMs, or In Game Modules, was a popular addition to LORD. It allowed for others to add onto the game and pretty much customize it in any way they wanted. In fact, many IGMs were their own encapsulated game. However, some IGMs were written to be cheating devices, allowing players to do evil things to other players, to give themselves money and gems, and pump up forest and player fights. Seth Robinson sold the rights to LORD to Metropolis Gameport in 1998. Planets: TEOS The second game released by Seth would be another text-based game, Planets: The Exploration of Space. It would be commonly referred to as Planets: TEOS, it was a space-based trading game, which had players flying to all kinds of planets, buying, selling, and trading items in order to make money. The game even allowed fights that were very similar in style to LORD, allowing players to attack others when they were offline. Players could also attack planets in order to take control of them. The game featured two sides, the Alliance and the Maraken. Players could join and fight for each side. Players could even own planets for withever side they belonged to. However, they could also play independently and even start their own "guilds" called cartels. It also had a huge Star Trek influence, including references to the Borg and characters from the different Star Trek shows. Seth Robinson sold the rights to TEOS to Metropolis Gameport in 1998. New World In various releases of Planets: TEOS, a game that Seth had been working on was advertised. This game, New World, would never see release, due to events that were never made public. Instead, another game that Seth came up with inherited the name, Legend of the Red Dragon II: New World. Fans wanted a new game from Seth and wanted New World as well, so he released the official sequel to his original hit, Legend of the Red Dragon. This game is completely different than the original Red Dragon, with many differences. Instead of a text based menu concept, the game was changed to an ANSI-based graphical map concept. Players controlled a smiley face-like character that could roam around, much like modern MMORPGs. The game was never as successful as the original Red Dragon, but it did gather a cult following. Seth Robinson sold the rights to LORD II to Metropolis Gameport in 1998. Dink Smallwood In 1997, Robinson Technologies released an adventure/RPG title by the name of Dink Smallwood. This was an effort made by Seth Robinson to move away from BBS door games and into something more profitable. The title featured a zelda-like isometric view and spotlighted the wicked sense of humor of Seth Robinson. In an attempt to keep the game alive for a little longer, Seth took the idea of IGMs from Legend of the Red Dragon and created "D-Mods", an add-on feature where players could create their own adventure for others to explore. Anyone could create D-Mods and distribute them as they wished. On October 17, 1999, Robinson Technologies released the game to the public for free and it can be downloaded without charge from their website. Teenage Lawnmower A 3D action/simulation/interactive story game, where players mowed lawns to make money to support their family. It was an Independent Games Festival finalist at GDC 2003. Dungeon Scroll A spelling game with a dungeon RPG theme. Players spelled words from letters they were given to deal damage to baddies they run in to in the dungeon. It was an Independent Games Festival finalist at GDC 2004. Funeral Quest A multiplayer Flash game, players take the on the role of running their own funeral parlor. Growtopia An independent server-run online multiplayer sandbox game, where people can chat, trade and build worlds.http://growtopiagame.com The game does not have a clear goal, but you can create worlds that can make it to the WOTD (World of the day) which is a world where many players visited, and the owner of the world gets the WOTD Trophy, exclusive item which is only given only to WOTD winners. The names of the worlds are endless, which can be anything within the character limits without special characters and spaces. Some of the worlds are owned,world locked by players so it can be protected, so that no one else can demolish it, the original worlds only contain a few elements, which can be broken to get the items, gems (currency used in Growtopia to buy items in store) and seeds. The seeds are used to be planted or spliced to get more items, for example, a dirt seed spliced with a cave background seed will grow a door seed. As the seeds get spliced, the items gets more rarer, and takes longer to grow.(Example:Dirt takes 31 seconds to grow, Rarity 1; Growsaber takes 24 days Rarity:126)There are many events as well.(Example:Crystal seed event)Every two weeks,there will be a update that lasts a week (Example:Halloween) Co-developed with Mike Hommel of Hamumu Software, and some others with developing and designing some of the items, the now game has more than 10 million accounts. (as of September 2014). The game has been downloaded 1,000,000 on each of the Google Play and Apple App Store. The iOS version was released shortly after the Android version in December 2012. A PC Windows and Mac beta version was also released in July 2013 but it is not clear that it will be officially released. Seth Robinson, Mike Hommel and some moderators, ban/mute/curse players who break the rules (offensive words, vulgarities, scamming players, etc.) Moderators are marked with an "@" before their name Example:(@Seth) so you can easily regonise them. (The /mods command will tell you the moderators online!) Seth himself awards the WOTDs, while the moderators will come online frequently to enforce the rules of Growtopia. The moderators and Developers of Growtopia are given their power to make the game better by helping players. The moderators of Growtopia are basically the teacher of a classroom. It is currently one of the most successful games by the Robinson technologies and Hamumu Software. Other projects Since the creation of Robinson Technologies, Seth Robinson has worked on many games and various programs. He at one point even had his hands in a video game arcade. Since the release of Dink Smallwood, he has worked on many ports of games to cellular phones and various games for several websites. Some of the phone ports he has worked on includes Duke Nukem and Guitar Hero III Mobile. Robinson Technologies has released several games and programs. The following list are the major notable games that have been developed and released by Robinson Technologies In a January 2006 news post on his website, Seth Robinson alluded to have been working on a brand new game or two. In October of the same year, the company unveiled the NovaShell game creation system, the technology powering their next game. NovaShell is available on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux under a zlib/libpng-style license. Employees Seth Robinson has had several people help him out with Robinson Technologies over time. They include: * Megan Robinson (his wife) Trivia * In the sysop.doc file for Planets: The Exploration of Space, it is noted "RTSoft *IS* Seth A. Robinson and Shawn Teal". References External links *Official website of Robinson Technologies *Seth Robinson's Programming Page *An Interview with Seth Robinson